Iraq and the Number of US Casualties

To begin this project I took a CIA jpeg image of Iraq from 2003 from the University of Texas Map Library website and used ArcMap to georeference the image in the Lambert Conformal Conic projection. I then digitized the map by “drawing” over the georeferenced jpeg image and thus made my own map of Iraq. To then make a thematic map of the casualties that the United States has thus far sustained in the war with Iraq I went to the icasualties.org website and found a map with this information. Then to the provinces layer’s attributes table I joined an excel spreadsheet data table which I made from the information I found.
From the resulting map that I made of US casualties in Iraq, the provinces of Baghdad and Al Anbar are by far the most dangerous provinces in the entire country. This would make sense since Baghdad is the capital city of Iraq, and thus its province has seen the most combat during the United States invasion of the country. Also the city of Fallujah in Al Anbar has been a hotspot for conflict between US troops and Iraqis which is demonstrated in the high number of casualties.
In the northern provinces of Iraq there are far less American casualties which is probably due to the fact that the Kurds claim this region as Kurdistan, which the United States supports. Therefore it would be reasonable to assume that less fighting in this region occurs between Iraqis and American forces since the Kurds who make up the majority of Iraqis who live here are not in conflict with the United States. The central provinces of Iraq, which include Al Anbar, Salah Ad Din, Diyala, Baghdad, and Babil, fall within the United States’ occupation zone, which is why there would be more US casualties in those regions.
The provinces of Karbala, Wasit, Al Qadisyah and An Najaf are occupied by Polish-led multinational forces while the southern most provinces of Al Muthanna, Dhi Qar, Maysan and Al Basrah are occupied by British-led multinational forces. Consequently since the United States has fewer troops stationed in these provinces the map reflects the obvious conclusion that there are less American casualties in these regions. Al Basrah, however, as the southern-most province of Iraq, is also where the Euphrates and Tigris rivers meet at the Persian Gulf, and thus is a key point of entry for troops into Iraq. Thus Al Basrah has a slightly higher casualty rate than the other southern provinces which could be due to the fact that is was one of the entry points for invasion by US troops from vessels stationed in the Gulf.